r/Firefighting • u/Launch_Rockface • Jul 10 '25

General Discussion Unpopular Opinions In the Fire Service

I am curious what other peoples unpopular opinions of the fire service are? I know there are alot of things we are doing or trying to do to improve the fire service as far as training and wellness, but I also know alot of it is just not that great in my opinion.

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u/xts2500 Jul 11 '25

The worse we do, the more the public is impressed.

Completely fuck up a room and contents fire and now it's ventilated out the roof? The public goes "wow those guys are really risking their lives!"

Completely fuck up a pin job and it takes 30 mins to extricate a patient when it should have taken 10? The public goes "wow that must be a really bad crash!"

Department full of poorly trained shitheads has to mutual aid three other departments for a simple house fire? "Wow that must have been a really bad call look at all those departments!"

I'm convinced firefighting is the only job that exists where the worse we do on scene the more the public is impressed. Some departments (mostly volunteers) take advantage of this, sometimes without even realizing it. I've seen sooo many social media posts from departments who go on and on about how hard a house fire was, or how bad an MVA was, and I'm looking at the pictures thinking damn boys you should have had that wrapped up in under an hour.

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u/rawkguitar Jul 11 '25

This is exactly correct. I’ve pointed this out to my guys a bunch of times.

Burn down a large building in the center of town, everyone pats us on the back.

Knock out a room and contents in 12 seconds so you can’t even see smoke damage from The outside? Nobody even notices (except them homeowner, of course)

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u/SmokeEater1375 Northeast - FF/P , career and call/vol Jul 11 '25

Due to being a smaller town and two engine companies that can get to either end in less than 10 minutes, I very much resemble all this.

I’ve seen more can jobs and one line stretched bullshit fires in 4 years than I ever did volunteering for 10 years. For our size we actually go to a decent amount of “fires” we’re just pretty good at not letting them get too far so it’s boring. I get bummed it wasn’t a good fire but then I quickly realize, that’s the good thing lol.

3

u/rawkguitar Jul 11 '25

Spot on.

Fun for us=bad for them